PHOTO: ARCHANT/DENISE BRADLEY
PHOTO: NORTH FARM LIVESTOCK
PHOTO: TIM SCRIVENER
FARM VISIT ▶▶▶
Outdoor UK farm faces both Brexit and Covid-19
About 40% of the UK’s sows are kept in outdoor facilities. That type of high-welfare pig production is not having the easiest of times with uncertain factors like Brexit and Covid-19 coinciding. How do the award-winning producers at North Farm Livestock manage?
BY CHRIS MCCULLOUGH, CORRESPONDENT C
onnecting consumers to the benefits of the high welfare production of outdoor pork is just one of the initiatives a pig farming business in the east of England strives to achieve each year. North Farm
Livestock makes a huge effort to create a better understand- ing of how it produces pigs in the healthy outdoors in order to improve the somewhat poor perceptions that some con- sumers have. Run by brothers Michael and Ian Baker, who are the directors and owners of North Farm Livestock, the business is located across a number of sites in the north Norfolk area, UK. As an outdoor pig production unit, the emphasis for the team is on maintaining a high herd health status, as well as high animal welfare, which should hopefully be an attraction to consum- ers concerned about how their food is produced.
Brexit and Covid-19 “We operate from 25 sites spread across north Norfolk cover- ing an area that is 43 miles (69 km) east to west and 31 miles (50 km) north to south,” Ian explains. “Our main breeding base is at Bayfield near Holt, while our finishing business is based at Syderstone near Fakenham.” The main breeding sows are split across a number of units and the business has immediate plans to increase the total number of sows to help meet an increasing demand for qual- ity pig meat. Michael says: “We are a high welfare outdoor breeding and outdoor finishing producer with all progeny bred and finished as free range. North Farm Livestock has 4,700 sows spread across four breeding herds in addition to its own gilt mating unit that supplies replacement herds for the breeding units. “Plans are in hand to add a fifth herd taking sow numbers to 5,800. Piglets are weaned at 28 days and moved to a finishing site run by the business resulting in the production of approx- imately 2,500 free-range pigs per week,” he says.
Brothers Ian, left, and Michael Baker of North Farm Livestock based at Syderstone, who have won the national Pig Farmer of the Year title, with one of their five-week-old Hampshire free range piglets.
18 ▶PIG PROGRESS | Volume 36, No. 7, 2020
Running an efficient pig business Running an efficient pig-producing business is the ultimate goal of every pig farmer taking control of all the input costs to make a profit. Managing the output prices, however, is far from the reach of most pork producers. “On our farms the pigs are taken right through from birth to fattening with the sales weight aimed at 110–115kg live weight,” says Michael. “All the finished pigs are sold to Tulip, the UK’s largest pork producer, as part of the supply chain for a major food retailer. “In our herds we prefer to use the Hampshire boar crossed with PIC gilt and from this cross we achieve an average litter size of 12.5 piglets per sow. All feed for the pigs is bought in with dietary support provided by BQP, who have over 40 years’ experience breeding pigs in the UK,” says Michael. As with every farm there are some mortalities and there is also a never-ending fight to prevent any form of disease getting into the herd. Michael adds: “Our pre-weaning mor- tality rate is approximately 9%, while the post-weaning mortality rate sits at around 3%. We don’t have African Swine Fever here but tight biosecurity remains high on our agenda. “Our main office site and yard are pig free and it includes wash facilities for equipment and staff. All our units have
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